5 Tips to Fight Against Work-from-Home Burnout

As great as working from home is, it’s sometimes difficult to maintain a work-life balance. When your work and personal life occur under the same roof, it feels like there’s no escape. The result? Work-from-home burnout.

What can you do to solve this? We’ve come up with five tips you can use to help know how not to feel burned out (or at least reduce the frequency of those feelings).

1. Encourage Yourself to Take Time Off

Everyone enjoys taking some time off from work. But that doesn’t mean everyone uses all of their paid time off (PTO)—55% of Americans reported having unused vacation days at the end of the year.

You may not take time off because you think you’re too busy or because you “don’t need it.” Especially when COVID-19 shut down travel, many of us felt like staying home and working was the best way to spend our time.

But you don’t need to plan a grandiose vacation to use your PTO. You can simply take a couple of days off to step away from the computer, unwind, and spend your time any way you like—even if that means staying home.

By taking time off, you can reduce work-from-home burnout—in one study, 79% of surveyed employees agreed that taking time off improves job satisfaction and overall health and wellbeing. 

2. Set Work-Life Boundaries

Working from home can blur the line between work life and personal life. When your computer or work phone is just in the other room, it’s too easy to respond to work notifications after you’ve already technically clocked out for the day. As a result, it can seem like you’re always working, which can quickly lead to burnout.

• To work through burnout, establish clear boundaries to separate your work and personal life. That could include:

• Turning off work-related notifications after you clock out.

• Building physical boundaries between you and your workstation, like turning a closet into an office or putting up a partition around your usual workspace.

• Creating and adhering to a work schedule.

• Taking regular breaks to step away from your desk.

3. Eat Lunch Away from Your Desk

Break rooms let employees step away from their desks and enjoy their lunch without being surrounded by their tasks. When you work from home, you may not have this same luxury.

While some employees have a kitchen table at which to eat, others use their kitchen table as a work desk. Even if that’s not the case for you, you may still be tempted to eat at your desk because it seems more convenient.

Remember to take your lunch as an opportunity to step away from work. Taking an extended break can help your brain reset, refresh, and feel more energized when it’s time to get back to work.

4. Prioritize Tasks Correctly

Some employees experience work-from-home burnout simply because they’re overexerting themselves. They try to cram twelve hours of work into an eight-hour workday because they think too many tasks can’t be delayed.

Help yourself properly prioritize your tasks. Clear communication about deadlines helps achieve this, as it helps you know what really needs to be done by the end of the day. You may also invest in a task management system to sort your tasks by their deadlines as a visual reference.

5. Go to a Coworking Space Twice a Week

The aftermath of COVID-19 proved that employees could be just as productive and effective when working remotely. But there’s a certain magic to working in an office that’s hard to replicate over video conferencing. Plus, working alone all day from a home office can be draining. 

These drawbacks aren’t worth the cost of leasing office space, but you should consider renting coworking spaces. These are smaller office spaces where you and your team can gather to work together, collaborate in real time, and build a sense of in-person community. Coworking spaces are equipped with high-speed WiFi and can be found at the center of some of the nation’s busiest business hubs, like New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Coworking spaces are much more affordable than leasing office space, only to have people come and go sporadically. Some coworking spaces start at as little as five dollars an hour.

Take Burnout Out of the Equation

Now that we’ve established how to stop being burned out, it’s time to take action. What will your anti-work-from-home burnout strategy look like? 

We highly recommend using Davinci’s coworking spaces. Using them will help you and your teams work better together, build stronger relationships, and feel more energized and committed to work.

Fight work-from-home burnout and find a coworking spot today.

About Coco Quillen

Coco is the Vice President of Operations at Davinci Meeting Rooms. She manages the strategic development and operational implementation of services for Davinci. She works closely with all teams to ensure customers are well taken care of. Google